After our cool visit to Denali, we drove through Anchorage to the Kenai Peninsula and camped on the shore in Seward. Here is a picture of our view from the tents.

The next day we were off on our cruise of Kenai Fjords National Park. The captain of the boat knew where all the animals were in the area and we got to see Sea L:ions, gulls, a bald eagle, otters, a pod of orcas, and a jumping whale. Here are some cool pictures from our cruise.

 We finally ended up at the Aialik glacier, one of the biggest in the park. We got to see several chunks of ice fall off the glacier. I knew that I couldn’t catch one of these on my camera so I got a couple of pictures of the glacier itself and of water outflow from the glacier. Here are some pictures.

The next day we went to the Exit Glacier just outside of Seward. The day started out nice and we decided to hike to the view of the Harding Ice Field. On the way, I got to see the vegetation change from forest to Alpine and then to bare dirt. I also saw my first Marmot. It started to rain when I was about 2.5 miles into the 4 mile hike to the ice field. I don’t like rain. So I turned around and went back to the visitor Center. Lynda and Sierra went to the end and came back cold and wet, but successful. Here is a picture of the Exit Glacier and the Marmot.

Now it’s time to return to Austin and warm weather.

Yesterday,  I did a shuttle ride from the Wilderness Access Center at Denali to Eielson. This was an 8 hour round trip if you stayed on the bus except for bathroom breaks. I stayed on the bus. It rained all day, except for when it snowed at the higher altitudes on the last part of the trip into Eielson.

The bus driver was apologetic, but it just wasn’t a very good day for extensive sightings of wildlife. Yet, we saw the big 5 animals people want to see in the park. Above is a picture of a grizzly bear. This was the only picture I got of an animal when you can actually see the animal. That is because this was the only animal that was walking on the road passed the bus. The bus driver said, “well he’s really scruffy. I guess he just got tired of walking through wet bushes and decided to go on the road.”

We also saw a moose and her young one on the road just as we pulled out of the wilderness access center. I didn’t have my camera out and missed that. We did see a group of caribou way out beyond the range of my telephoto lens. The bus driver loaned me her binoculars and I saw them. They had huge antlers. Then we say some Dall Sheep up on the steepest green areas of the mountains surrounding us. Later that day, I was able to identify more of them and look at them through a scoping telescope at one of our rest stops. This was just before we got to the polychrome area of the road with its narrow one lane road along an area of steep scree.

On the way back we saw a tannish colored wolf lopping across the river gravels. It was really traveling fast, but again it was out of the range of my camera lens. It was very frustrating to have these sightings, but be unable to get a picture. I guess the best pictures we can have in life are those we have in our memories.

Two days now in Alaska near Fairbanks. I have been sleeping between midnight and 2 a.m. so I can’t say with certainty, but I haven’t see it get dark yet. What a wonderful way to get to see more. Unlike the Grand Canyon, Alaska is moderately warm to cool the whole day and night. So there isn’t any time when you need to huddle in a pool of shade waiting for the time when you can hike.

We went to the Chena Hot Springs recreational area for the past day and a half. We got a very nice campsite which was right on a bubbling stream. It is amazing how many people noises disappear when you sleep near a bubbling creek. Apparently, that doesn’t apply to snoring. The hot springs themselves are commercial, but that is to be expected because the owners have to make money to stay open for people to experience the hot springs.

The owners built an ice museum to house ice sculptures. Like the one seen on the amazing race in a Scandinavian country, this ice museum also had room with ice beds and fake outhouses. There is also an ice carved wedding chapel complete with rostrum for the preacher to stand behind.

The highlights of the day had nothing to do with the hot springs. We saw four ducks busily walking around the area. Then on our way out down the highway, I saw my first Alaskan mouse. And, we decided to try and camp near the Chena river in one of the side roads instead of in a campground. It was a great decision. We found a spot that no one else had camped in yet and we pitched out test right on the rocky rubbly shore. The rocks were mostly small sounded pebbly kind that had flattened out. They were easy to set up a tent in and I didn’t feel anything through my Thermarest mattress. Again, the bubbling water was a wonderful soothing way to cover up noises and I got a great night’s sleep.

Next stop, Denali National Park.

Today, this morning, I arrived in Alaska. I came in at Anchorage. There was a weather problem at the Denver airport and my plane did not leaved Salt Lake City on time. I had hopes that I would still make the Fairbanks flight because the flight attendants thought all the planes out of Denver were delayed at least an hour. However, the Fairbanks flight had left by the time I arrived.

I was rebooked through Anchorage and left at 10:20 p.m. The disorientation happened as we came into Anchorage. Apparently, the sun was just setting. It was 1:00 a.m. By the time we landed at 1:40 a.m. it was fully dark. How weird that it was dark and then back to dusk and then back to dark, all in a matter of moments. And then it was light again. By 3:00 a.m. the sky was lightening. And by 4 a.m. I could clearly see the landscape outside the airport windows. The sun was spreading tendrils of redness – to the east, I suppose, but I can’t be sure. The disorientation is so complete.

I tried to call Lynda from Salt Lake City and then from Denver, but never got her. I don’t have cell phone coverage, and can only assume she doesn’t have it either. I tried an email from Anchorage and hope that someone will meet me at the Fairbanks airport when I arrive at 7 a.m.

Already, I feel the difference of summer in this far northern clime.

Here is a view at the University of Utah. The campus is nestled at the foot of the mountains. I can see the snow capped peaks from my room in the residence hall. And the conference is a lot of fun, too.

I will be attending the biennial philosophy of biology conference in Salt Lake City near my friend, Lynda. Then we are flying to Alaska to bring her truck back from Fairbanks. We will be enjoying a trip through the area and Canada back to Salt Lake. I am looking forward to seeing something new, different, and probably never to be seen again by me.

Here is a picture of me ready to go.

I have seen the full moon rising after the sun has set and noticed that often times it is large and orange. Several years ago when I was camping at Navajo National Monument, I saw the waxing moon, barely more than a sliver, become large and orange as it set about an hour after sunset. Then yesterday just before midnight, I saw the half moon slip below the horizon. It also was large and orange.

I never realized before that every time the moon sets after the sun has gone down that it not only becomes larger, but also more orange the closer it gets to the horizon.

Some times there are things that you think are always associated with one phenomenon, such as sunset turning the moon orange, when they are really associated with something else. The moon is always orange when it goes down after sunset. It does not need to be associated with sunset. It is associated with being dark.

Jim and I did a trip last weekend north of Monument Valley to an area around Mexican Hat, Utah. We drove the gravel BLM road around Valley of the Gods. This is what I call the poor man’s Monument Valley since it includes large monument rocks in fanciful shapes, but you can drive the road free and even camp in the shadow of the large rocks. Of course, you can’t camp at this time of year as there is no shade. Nothing grows taller than the scrubby blackbrush that pokes out of the red sand of the valley. There aren’t even any boulders to huddle under. There is a large drainage that runs through the valley with some trees in the drainage. The area has no water and it wouldn’t be very safe during the summer rainy season to park that close to a stream bed. Still it was an interesting place to visit.

We also drove to Goosenecks State Park. This is one of the best examples of an “entrenched meander”. According to Jim, a river will meander, form S-shaped loops, in a river valley. What happened at the Goosenecks was that the land was uplifted, like the land at the Grand Canyon. As the land rose higher, the river cut down into the limestone and sandstone sediments and its crooked S-shape became frozen in place by the rocks that surrounded it. They call these frozen meanders “goosenecks” because the narrow sections where parts of the river get close separated only by a narrow strip of rock look like the narrow necks of geese.

We were surprised that the river was a deep chocolate red. When we had crossed the San Juan River at Mexican Hat at 6:30 the night before, the river had been a clear green. Now it was reddish. I wondered it something had turned it red below Mexican Hat or if the rains that had followed us from Arizona had washed sediment into the river causing it to change colors. On our way back to the North Rim, we crossed the river at Mexican Hat and it was a reddish brown as well.

Does technology belong in the wilderness?

Today when I was doing a short hike along the Transcept trail, I saw a man working on his lap top computer on a picnic table overlooking the rim of the Grand Canyon. Last week some visitors purchased a backcountry permit and wanted to know how hot it would get to have their car in the parking lot at the trailhead. It seemed they had a computer and were trying to decide if they needed to rent a hotel room for their computer or if they could leave it in their car. Two weeks ago, a group of boy scouts, out of water and dehydrated hiking the Thunder River trail, used a satellite phone to call out for help. Often I can tell if a person works in a National Park if they are hiking down a wilderness trail with an iPod and a pair of earphones stuck in their ears.

More and more people are bringing their technology to the backcountry areas of National Parks and wilderness areas. Should we experience wilderness as we have in the past, as a place without the intrusion of our fast paced lives or should we take technology with us to protect us from bad decision making and death?

OK, naturally no one wants to die. We didn’t ban advanced medical care or helicopters in the wilderness to save lives. And, no one has yet found a way to keep people from making bad decisions. Would we have wanted three or more boy scouts to die in Surprise Valley because it would have taken a day to hike someone back out to the car and drive to some place to phone in the problem? No, a satellite phone is a better option. So I guess that we do want technology of some sort in the backcountry.

But in selecting that answer as the one that preserves and protects life, we have to acknowledge that it should not be used frivolously for to use it in such a manner is to take from us the healing nature of wilderness, the solitude, the ability to become one again with nature. Perhaps what we should keep from the backcountry is portable music and game players. What is it that you gain in hiking down the trail listening to the sounds of civilization?

There are three times a day when you can count on action in the backcountry office. One is when we open at 8 a.m. People are anxious to go down the trail immediately. One is at 1 p.m. when we get back from lunch. It’s a time when people who’ve come by during the lunch hour gather around waiting for us to come back so they can get their permits. And lastly between 4 and 5 p.m. just before we close. These are the people looking for a camping spot that night.

The 8 a.m. people usually think that they can get a permit and start down the trail. The backcountry office doesn’t open until 8 which is usually too late to be starting a hike – that is if your hike is starting in May through September – which is mostly when the NR backcountry office is open. Plus those times when it is OK to start after 8 a.m. only the SR office is open to the public. Or, sometimes, like in October, we have no same day permits. Of course now in July, we are loaded with opportunities, but it is way to hot to start hiking at 8 a.m. Not that we don’t have people who just don’t listen. It’s usually nice and cool on the North Rim at 8 a.m. or even 9. But people soon learn that it’s not so nice a couple thousand feet lower in elevation. Today at closing a guy came by and mentioned to the people I’d just sold a permit to for tomorrow that he had encountered some people I’d worked with yesterday who were on their way down at 7 a.m. They were at the bridge about 2700 feet down and wishing they had started at 5 a.m.

Then of course there are the 1 p.m. people. These are the folks who are looking for same day permits and for whom a same day permit might make sense. If they are willing to wait until we get some shade on the trail, typically at 2-3 p.m., they can get a good hike to Cottonwood. Some times we have a couple of strange people coming in at 1 p.m. For example, we had some people come in at one that expected to get to Phantom ranch for a 5 p.m. steak supper. They didn’t believe me when I told them it was a 14 mile hike. “No,” they said, “it’s only 7.5 miles.” Like I don’t know how far it is to the bottom from the North Rim.

Finally, there are the 4-5 p.m. people looking to get a camping spot for the night. Usually, the campground is full by that time and they send them to me for a backcountry permit. Most people don’t realize that you can camp in the backcountry of the North Rim itself. We have sites in the forest and on the rim inside the park. The big boss on the South Rim encourages us to sell these permits when permits in the bottom are not available. But who comes to the North Rim to camp on top? Most backpackers want to go into the Canyon. If a person is looking for a campsite late in the afternoon, they usually want to camp near their car, according to the NR district ranger. That means they are going to be camping illegally if we sell them one of our forest sites. However, if we encourage them to go into the forest outside the park, they can get a campsite right by their car and not too far from the main road into the park. They can usually get to the trailhead to begin their hike as fast as or faster than if they camped in the park itself – unless of course, they camped in our developed campground.

But there is an alternative for them. If they haven’t gotten a campground and we have spots, they can hike down to Cottonwood. Sometimes it makes a difference for those who really want to go to the bottom. Especially now when it is so hot, I don’t want to sell a campsite at the bottom for backpackers. It is just that selling one night at Cottonwood isn’t very good either. People who want to go to the bottom may still hike there and get sick. So if I have some same day cottonwood permits, I will sell two nights starting that night. Some guys came in today and I sold them a two night permit starting then. They could well get there after dark, but the hike itself would be safe because it is much cooler at 5 p.m. then in the middle of the day.

You really can’t mess up on the North Kaibab trail. Nothing is as wide and smoothed as that trail. You do need a flashlight because you could trip over waterbars and rocks, but it’s a cool time to be hiking in the Canyon in July.

Everyone thinks that the Grand Canyon is static, the same year after year. It certainly seems to look exactly the same. And the weather. We all think the weather is the same year after year. But the Grand Canyon, like human beings, is a living system and that system changes from year to year.

Last year I knew that the Grand Canyon was different weatherwise. Last October, it was much wetter than expected and we had snow earlier 17.5 inches the last week of October. In the past, my bosses have laughed at me, telling me that I am wrong to worry about snow because it’s not a problem until December. Last October hunters were snowbound on the gravel roads of the forest after that storm. All last winter, it snowed steadily and the opening of the North Rim was delayed until May 16th. Diane, my roommate, has picture showing snow piled higher than cars along a narrow stretch of road that was opened for employees the very end of April.

It rained all through May and June and was very cold. Some employees hiking in Kanab Creek drainage were caught by a flash flood and had to wait out the waters for 12 hours. Then the sun hit was a vengeance, impelling me to cut short by trip to Kanab creek not because of flash flooding, but because of excessive heat I could not stay hydrated. I couldn’t put the water my body needed in fast enough.

Now, yesterday, we are back to torrential downpours followed by merciless sun. The Canyon weather is no more stable than the Canyon itself.

Rain!

Nothing is more satisfying during the incredible heat of summer than the coming of the summer monsoon rains. We call it a monsoon, but I suppose that people who live in an area with real monsoon rains would reject this description. The Canyon produces its own weather. In the afternoon clouds begin to gather as the heat from the Canyon rises and combines with cooler air above. The clash of the heated and cooled air results in brief, but torrential rains.

Yesterday, at 3:54 p.m. the Canyon weather combined to send 0.1 inches of rain down in 15 minutes. The rain continued for about an hour and a half and then stopped – a usual occurrence with this kind of weather. The temperature dropped about 20 degrees during that time, making it hiking weather again, at least briefly.

Rain brings – water for plants, relief from the oppressive heat that pinned me down in Kanab Creek drainage, and cooler sleeping weather. It’s what makes it bearable to live within the inner canyon. Rain can also bring flash flooding to the Canyon. Any rain of an inch or more in an hour can move rocks and dirt and water down the narrow drainages of the Canyon.

Flash flood kills people just as heat kills people. But while heat drains your body of the water it needs, flooding puts way too much water were it is not needed. The force of this water can tear all the clothes from your body and carry you 30-40 miles or more down the Colorado River. So in both case, it probably isn’t that good an idea to be hiking in drainages.

It’s a kind of “how do you want to die” scenario.

Yes.

Yesterday, there were a group of boy scouts, why is it always a group of boy scouts, that had to be helped as they had run out of water in Surprise Valley around 11:30 a.m. Why is anyone in Surprise Valley any time after 6 a.m. or before 5 p.m.? Even on the best of days Surprise Valley is too hot to be walking in after sunrise or close to sunset. Why would anyone even set foot in Surprise Valley at any other time?

I recall that one day I tried to hike down the Redwall Switchbacks above Surprise Valley around noon, thinking that I was only a couple of hours from the cool waters of Thunder River, and the rocks were so hot that they melted one of the nylon straps on my backpack. It was too hot to be there and that was a cool day compared to the days we have been experiencing now.

Is it that people just don’t want to give up on a goal, even when there is great danger? Do Boy Scout leaders come with defective danger meters? Do they think that being a Boy Scout means taking terrible physical chances because they are supposed to be building character? Is it too much machismo in one group?

I often wonder how people get caught up in a Canyon tragedy when their optimism for a great hike turns to concern, terror and maybe death. I’ve just come back from a hike into the Kanab Creek wilderness area — an area of beauty and wonder of water and dust. And I came back scared and happy to be alive.

I knew it would be hot. It’s July, but it has been colder than usual and there is a lot more water than usual. There is plenty of water in the drainages that lead into Kanab creek and in the creek itself. The plan was simple. Go down the Ranger’s trail, which is a pretty gentle trail, manage the little difficult spot were you hang onto the side of a cliff, then straight onto Kanab creek and down to the many wonders of creeks and hollows and water slides.

And it started off well, too. I got out early enough starting my hike at 4 p.m. a day early and to getting all the way to Lower Jumpup where I camped near water. Perhaps I should have been suspicious to sleep comfortably all night without a sleeping bag or even long underwear and never having to urinate, but I was oblivious to all the signs of problems.

The next day I started early and had no problem hiking down the hanging ledges along the steep cliffs surrounding the Lower Jumpup waterfall. I did drop my backpack and spill some water, but I had no problem getting more. Lower Jumpup was full of water to within 5 feet of its confluence with Sowats Canyon. I was a little surprised by how hard it was to hike down to the confluence with Sowats. I’m thinking that the heavy rains brought more boulders and made deeper cuts into the beds of the creeks leading to Kanab. This made the hike down the drainages slower. But I was full of wonder of the Canyon and the water. Mountain Sheep Spring was three times as wide as usual and the water flowed down Jumpup passed the confluence of Jumpup with Kwagant.

I was still chirping along as I hiked into the dry narrows of Jumpup. Again, the drainage was very rocky and full of boulders and deep ruts where the spring waters had carved their initials into the drainage. About an hour and a half into the narrows, I came upon the cleft that normally has a small pool of water – it was a very large pool. I passed it by happily. Is this what people marching to disaster do? Do they pass by somewhat disgusting water with nary a thought of needing it?

By a little before 11 a.m., I was getting sore and tired. I was getting hungry and my power bar did not appeal to me. But I told myself, no matter if I got to the Kanab confluence or not, I would eat at 11. Then just minutes before 11, I turned the corner and there it was – the confluence. I often call it Wall Street because Jumpup intersects Kanab creek at a right angle. The cliffs tower above the confluence like high rise buildings in some kind of metropolis where the light never penetrates to the street.

I sat in the shade and ate my tuna lunch with crackers. It was very hot and I had a hard time choking down the tuna. I guess it was at this time that I began to worry. I know that you have to eat and that I was hungry, but I was forcing myself to put this food into my body, forcing myself to eat and drink. And I was still thirsty. At noon, I got up to go and I was slammed by the force of the heat at the confluence. I knew that I couldn’t walk in this heat, it was too overwhelming. Then I looked at my water – just over 2 quarts – and my directions and I began to wonder whether I would get to water before I ran out.

It was then that I began to shake uncontrollably. My heart started to pound and I felt weak. What would happen if I ran out of water? I started to walk down the creek bed. It was full of boulders, not smooth. But then, there were very few smooth spots all the way down to this spot. I walked to a shady spot down the creek and sat down shivering and shaking at the same time. I was torn between wanting to keep walking and filled with dread to keep walking. I sat until I ran out of shade and then walked back to the confluence.

There was still shade in a corner of Wall Street and I plastered myself to the wall until almost 3 p.m., taking small sips of water. Then I made up my mind to return to the nice camp space I’ve been in before at the confluence of Jumpup and Sowats. It took 4.5 hours. I was hurting from the weight on my back. I was hungry, but could not eat. I was thirsty, but never satisfied even as I drank as much as I could take. About 6:30 p.m. I arrived at the first large pool of water near Jumpup and Kwagant. I decided to eat dinner and cooked up a double portion because my plan was to leave before my time. Unfortunately, I couldn’t eat it all. And yet I was hungry. I know this as a bad sign. You have to eat and drink to survive the heat. I ate as much as I could and then walked the last 30 minutes to my campsite. I set up just as the sun set and it got dark. Again I had no trouble sleeping without long underwear and I didn’t have to urinate.

In the early morning, I had a decision to make. It was incredibly hot in the Canyon and I had a long distance to go before I got to my car. This worried me. How hot would it get as I hiked? I was already dehydrated and I had not been eating enough for a long hike out. I decided to spend one more day in the drainage, trying to recover. But I didn’t just want to sit around all day. I decided that I could hike a little over an hour and check out the Obstacle Pool that George Steck mentions in his loop hike through Indian Hollow. I did that and found that while there was water there for the first time, two years ago the area was completely dry, it was still very low and allowed anyone to get to the workaround for the big chockstone that blocks Indian Hollow at this point.

It was a fun hike and I really enjoyed it. But even coming back to camp early in the morning, I was hot, unbearably hot. I lay down in the first pool by Kwagant and got wet. When I got back to camp it was in complete sun. I knew that if I were going to hike out the next day, I would need to be higher up the Sowats drainage. Mountain Sheep Spring pours out of the rock only 30 minutes up and it is just 30 minutes from the trail out to the Esplanade. I packed up and moved my camp to the cool overhang spot near Mountain Sheep. Even doing so cost me effort. It was so hot that it took longer to get up and I had to stop and get wet several times.

After setting up my camp, I sat and drank as much water as I could. I ate a powerbar and at noon I ate the rest of my dinner from the night before. It was the most amazing thing to be near water, to drink as much water as I could stand to put into my body, to sit in pools of cool water all day and yet to know that I was not whole. I was still dehydrated. I still could hardly eat any food. I began to wonder how difficult it would be to leave the next morning.

About 6:30 p.m. when the sun had gone completely from Sowats drainage, I decided to hike up to where the trail leaves the drainage. I wanted to make sure that I could find it, so that I wouldn’t waste any time getting out in the morning. I thought that if I knew exactly were the trail came out of the drainage, I could leave in the dark. How could I go wrong? I was just hiking up a dainage and there was no false trails that I could take. I found the cairns easily and just before the trail left the drainage there were two large rocks. Piece of cake.

I went back, ate as much food as I could and slept all night. Again not needing any extra clothing or having any desire to urinate. I got up at 3:15 a.m. and was out of camp by 4, walking in the dark for about 30 minutes. I began to worry because I hadn’t seen the cairns and wondered if I had missed them. Finally, I said, “Let’s give it five more minutes.” Within 5 minutes, I arrived at the trail markers. I was so happy I sat down and just shock with the joy of making it to my trail.

But I knew I couldn’t stop, I had to keep walking as fast as I could because the sun was an unrelenting traveler across the sky. I got up and started to walk. I’m just not as fast as others. I just can’t carry as heavy a load. I had to rest several times on the hike out of the drainage. I couldn’t even do the entire hour across the esplanade without resting. But finally I came to the Ranger Trail junction. What joy I had to see that this drainage was also still in shade. Again, I walked as fast as I could drinking as much water as my body would take. As soon as I felt hungry, I sat down on the trail and ate another breakfast. I knew that I needed to keep my body in fuel if I was not to get hyponutremic. I stayed in shade until almost 8 a.m. and about 2 miles from my car. The heat slammed into me even that early and even that far up to the rim.

At 9 a.m., I came to the barbed wire fence. When I came down three days earlier, I timed it as only 30 minutes from the rim. I sat down and cried; I was so happy to be that close. I knew then that I would make it. Marker Marshall was right when she said that, “There is always a time when you can turn around and go back. But you usually feel good at that point. When you chose to go beyond then, is when people get in trouble.” I had almost gone beyond that time. I didn’t really feel good anymore. But I knew where there was water. I knew enough to get more water from the skuzzy pool when I walked by it on my way back from Wall Street. I knew enough to take the extra time to get better and to leave from the closest place to my destination at the earliest time with the most water I could carry.

In just 15 minutes more, I was at Upper Jumpup and the cold water trough. I get thoroughly wet again for the most difficult part of the climb, the hike up through the Coconino switchbacks. I’ve never been happier to see the trailhead as I was that day. Today it is overcast and threatening, but I am glad to be out. I would not be any happier if I were to die because I was flushed down to the Colorado River in a flash flood that if I died from the heat in Kanab drainage.

The day I arrived back to the North Rim was the day that a 27 year old man in perfect health died on the Bright Angel trail from heat. He was doing a rim to rim hike. The rangers at the bottom told him to stop there or at least wait until late afternoon or evening to do his hike. He chose to continue on in the noon heat and died. Some times the most important lesson you can learn is to walk away from a goal, to realize when it is best to take another path, to try again when the conditions are better for you to realize that goal. But to recognize that point is sometimes very difficult because you feel that the goal is so close, you feel so good, but if you sit back and think about your situation, you sometimes find that the seeds of destruction are there. Take the time to listen to your body, to listen to your instincts about an action, to head what others tell you. Don’t go blindly forward just because you really want to reach that goal or just because you really think that your plan is the right plan. Take the time to listen and learn from yourself and from others.

There is an upside to pollution. We think of pollution as a destructive and negative force. However, there is always an upside to devastation. For pollution that upside is fabulous sunsets and sunrises. When smoke blankets the rim of the Canyon, the sun becomes a mutted red ball as it sets. You can look directly in the face of the sun and see only a tamed rubber ball.

Garbage, the human detritus, is also undescribably disgusting in a wilderness setting. Yet, garbage saved my life. The first time I hiked down to Supai, a town on the Havasupai Indian Reservation and gateway to three magnificent canyon waterfalls, I did not know which way to turn when I intersected Havasu canyon. I didn’t have my map. I saw the remains of a sign across the Canyon and went to it. There was a trail leading away from that sign, which had no writting left on it. I started up the trail, but quickly realized that I was missing something — the garbage that I had continually seen on the track from the trail head.

I returned to the mouth of the Canyon and proceeded the other direction, immediately encountering more garbage. Within 100 feet of the Canyon intersection, I found a sign hidden behind some bushes and pointing forward toward the village of Supai.

It is possible in many cases to find good hidden among the bad if we only look for it.

Smoke is usual when the forest of the North Rim burn, but flames are not. Even the highest flames are small in comparison to smoke. They are almost indistinguishable from the forest itself. This is an odd occurence when something that is so distructive is almost invisible from view.

I say almost invisible because when it is dark, the smoke releases its pre-eminence. Smoke becomes invisible, but the orange tongues of flame stand out in the darkness. Last night flame was visible in pockets of the dark bulk of the canyon rim. It was not as prominent as flame that I saw one night from the area of the Desert View watchtower on the east end of the South Rim. That was an enormous swatch of land maybe as much as half a mile. This was a dot of color in comparison. However, the fire was closer and I could see distinguishable individual flames from across the gap.

What we can learn from this is that destruction can be powerful even as it is hidden from our view.

By definition, the Grand Canyon is the premier place to die. Once I was hiking down to Indian Gardens and met some teenagers who had hiked to the bottom and were 3 miles from the top. I told them they could have died doing such a silly thing. They replied, “but what a great place to die in.” I would rather think of it as a great place to come alive.

Yet, we have had deaths. Just last week, a boy scout leader died hiking up the North Kaibab along the Redwall traverse. He was 42 and they think it had something to do with his heart. This is just a year from when a 70 year old man on a backpack with his wife slipped and fell off the trail along the same area.

Until these deaths, I didn’t think that anyone could get in trouble on that trail. I think maybe what it shows me is that we can never know when and how death will take us and we shouldn’t waste any time doing things we don’t like.

Everybody talks about the weather and not just because it is a neutral topic. No. Weather can involve life or death. Last week two members of the Fee department were hiking in Kanab Creek wilderness, an area of deep and narrow canyons when they narrowly avoided being swept to the Colorado River in a flash flood.

It’s not that flash floods are foreign to the Grand Canyon, but they are usually limited to the monsoon season, July through first week of September, or during spring melt run-off. To have a flash flood in June is unheard of. June is the month of greatest heat and least rain. Yet, this June the Canyon has had monsoonal like rain storms in June.

I thought we were in for weather that was unusual, at least in my experience in the Canyon, when we got 17.5 inches of snow in the last week of October 2004. And the winter of 2004-2005 was snowier than usual with snow blocking the road until the end of April and snow cuddled around trees at the edges of the meadow until late June. The standing water on the meadows was different than previous years as well.

What does this tell us? It tells us that there is no pattern set in stone. Change is all around us. Unpredictability is the norm. Perhaps it also gives us a glimpse into the mind of those who went before us. If the weather could not be counted on perhaps it was due to forces that had to be apeased. Perhaps patterns could only be found by appealing to something greater than us. Perhaps such a being could control nature if we could not.

Fire is an important part of the health of the forests of the Grand Canyon. Thus, wildfires are nutured if they don’t threaten visitors and structures. Right now there is a fire near Tiyo point, just a few miles west of my apartment. The smoke fills the western sky and the smell is ever present. Today the sun set as a large red ball. It seems like the best sunsets are those when the sky is polluted.